Still Thinking – The Centre Knows

Two years ago Anne and I spent a week travelling through central Australia from Alice Springs, through Kings Canyon to Uluru. Since that time I have become convinced that this great rock, almost in the centre of Australia, holds some great truth about our place in the world.  It was the American poet Robert Frost who wrote the words, “we dance around the ring and suppose; but the secret sits in the centre and knows.”  As Australians we, by and large, cling to the fertile coastline.  Most of our population lives in six cities, all on the coast.  So from this place of relative comfort we turn our backs to the centre and gaze toward the ocean’s horizon. And while the edge and the circle can sustain us, it is only by turning to the centre that we can find that which nourishes our souls.

I use this metaphor deliberately because after spending an afternoon with Dr Parker Palmer at his home in Madison Wisconsin, I am aware that it is only by living our lives around the spiritual centre that we will truly be filled with the richness that life in God offers.  Perhaps that is just stating the obvious, and yet for whatever reasons we as individuals, communities and societies, often miss the possibilities we could have if we lived both from and into that life giving centre.

Some would say that if we all just worshiped God and believed in Jesus then we would have the centre we need.  But that approaches too easily collapses into religiosity and theological games.  Rather it is the “God beyond god” that we really seek.  That may not make a lot of sense to some, but it is an attempt to move from idolatry, where an image, idea or institution is central and worshipped to a mystery that speaks its wordless truth to all of us.

James Hollis in his insightful book, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally Grow Up, says that a person or a culture cannot “create” a mystery it is only glimpsed, encountered and felt.  It is the ineffable “More” of life – not a riddle to be solved, but a wordless surplus of meaning to be experienced.  And at its most authentic it is an inner experience at the centre of one’s being.

Parker Palmer has given us a great gift through his development of the Circles of Trust.  He explained in our conversation that much of our lives are spent talking to the person next to us and seldom do we gaze into the centre, that open space filled with meaning and possibility and even silence.  But at the same time it is necessary to note that Parker’s approach is not merely a form of personal development or self-actualization.  It finds its truest expression in the world in which we act with care, compassion and justice, as the circle ever widens.

There is a sign at the bottom of Uluru that asks people to respect this sacred place by not climbing the rock – it is not enforced so many do climb it.  The sign ends with these words from an aboriginal elder, which I paraphrase, “What’s with you whitefellas, why do you always need to get to the top of everything? Why not just walk around the rock and let it speak its truth to you?”

Christopher Page